"
"Then it is high time he should have--and a good many of them. I
shall pay Mrs. Menteith well for his board, but I shall make him a
sufficient allowance besides. He must stand on his own feet, without
any one to support him. It is the only way to make a boy into a man--
a man that is worth anything. Do you not see that yourself?"
"I see, Lord Cairnforth, that you think it would be best for my boy to
be separated from his mother."
She spoke in a hurt tone, and yet with a painful consciousness that what
she said was not far off the truth, more especially as the earl did not
absolutely deny the accusation.
"I think, my dear Helen, that it would be better if he were separated
from us all for a time. We are such quiet, old-fashioned folks at
Cairnforth, he may come to weary of us, you know. But my strongest
motive is exactly what I stated--that he should be left to himself,
to feel his own strength and the strength of those principles which we
have tried to give him--that any special character he possesses may
have free space to develop itself. Up to a certain point we can take
care of our children; beyond, we can not--nay, we ought not; they
must take care of themselves.
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